microcephaly News

Miami -
On Thursday, Florida health officials said 84 pregnant women in the state have tested positive for the Zika virus, including one woman who gave birth to a baby born with microcephaly on Wednesday.

Paris -
Two studies of newborns in Zika-stricken Brazil yielded meagre clues Wednesday about the mysterious workings of the virus, and prompted researchers to call for better tests to identify brain-damaged babies.

Florida's governor announced on Tuesday a woman from Haiti gave birth to a child with microcephaly, a first for Florida, bringing to five the number of babies born in the U.S. with the birth defect related to Zika virus disease.

In April this year, the CDC took a bold step in saying "There is no longer any doubt that Zika causes microcephaly." But a new study asks, "If this is so, where are the missing microcephaly cases in other nations hard hit by the virus?"

A new study has resulted in a global map that shows over two billion people living in tropical and sub-tropical regions on the globe are at the greatest risk for infection with the Zika virus, including people living in Texas and Florida in the U.S.

Canada may have its first case of sexually transmitted Zika in a patient in Saskatchewan say health officials. The case involves a woman who had sex with a man who had recently traveled to a Zika-affected country.

The seemingly increased number of cases of microcephaly in newborns in Brazil which coincided with a Zika virus outbreak has stunned the world. The Zika virus has been linked to cases of microcephaly, however there are some doctors who disagree.

Proving birth defects, and in particular, microcephaly in newborns is linked to the Zika virus is more difficult than many people realize. While cases of microcephaly have been found in seven countries, determining the cause is still a long way off.

Studies on the mosquito-borne Zika virus have been ongoing in Brazil and in the U.S. since an upsurge in the number of babies born in Brazil with microcephaly in 2015. The CDC may have found the answer.

Until this year, Brazil had few cases of microcephaly, a debilitating and ultimately deadly disorder in which newborns are born with abnormally small brains.
Then the country recorded almost 3,000 cases after reporting less than 200 cases in 2014.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday that Brazil is now reporting 1,761 cases of babies born with microcephaly, a condition where the brain is unusually small. The condition has been linked to a mosquito-borne virus.